


Broken Space Fragments

by argle_fraster



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Episode Related, Fivesome, Gen, M/M, everything is implied but the 1x3 is probably the most obvious, omni-ship, pre-slash on everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 17:37:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4488606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argle_fraster/pseuds/argle_fraster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Trowa's memory is restored by ZERO, the pilots find themselves inexplicably tied together. A series of scenes from aboard Peacemillion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Space Fragments

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seventhe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhe/gifts).



> I haven't really written anything in probably over 9 months. As such, this is HORRIFICALLY rough, and I'm still trying to find my style and footing again, so I apologize for how weird it all probably reads. I'm hoping that this will jump-start my passion for writing once more, and that I can practice and get back to the place I used to be.
> 
> Oh, and this is Sev's fault. <3

It isn't until Trowa stumbles out of the cockpit, head in his hands and a falter to his step, that Quatre remembers to breathe again. His chest feels tight and heavy, the after-effects of the adrenaline; he wasn't even there, but he can still feel the lingering touch of ZERO on his mind, the twist that clouds some of his thoughts and magnifies others. Trowa's boots hit the metal grates and the sound echoes through Peacemillion's docking bay; there is one step, then another, and then Trowa's body slumps completely onto the iron.

Quatre is there in an instant. "Trowa," he says, more urgently than he'd planned to, and it's not his fault if the words catch in his throat. His fingers grab at the fabric of Trowa's shirt and curl in, deep, leaving stretched bits behind when they move. "Trowa!"

"I'm... alright," Trowa replies. He sounds far from alright, but he's already trying to get back up on his feet, struggling to make jellied muscles obey his commands. ZERO's after taste is fog and confusion, as if one has left his own body to inhabit something that has no tangible form. Coming back is a rude awakening.

Still, Trowa is trying, and Quatre lets him, but keeps holding on for fear of losing the other man completely. Trowa's movements are jerky and unsure; like a suit that has malfunctioned halfway through the battle, he can't seem to find the right buttons to press.

"Don't," Quatre says, even though he knows there's little use. "Don't push yourself."

"I remember," Trowa murmurs. He slumps a bit, against Quatre's arm, and allows himself to be held up as they slowly make their way down the catwalk and into Peacemillion's silver-washed halls.

When Quatre doesn't respond, the other man lifts his head to continue. "I remember everything."

"I'm sorry," Quatre replies, out of reflex; the sincerity of it surprises even himself.

If Trowa is startled by the confession, he doesn't show it. They find a chair and Trowa gets himself on it. He seems surer of himself now, more in-control, but Quatre doesn't want to risk it. Whatever is there seems oddly fragile - something he'd thought that he'd lost and now has back again, for the second time, whole and in one piece. It's a luxury in times of war that he is fiercely glad for. If he holds on too long to Trowa's shoulders, well... he thinks he's allowed a few comforts.

The other man puts his head into his hands and sighs once, wearily, into his palms.

"I'm sorry that I worried you," he says, partly muffled. "I've worried everyone. You don't need that kind of stress right now."

"Stop it," Quatre hisses.

Trowa raises his head, green eye wide.

"Don't do that," Quatre says. The hand still on Trowa's shoulder is clenching the joint too hard; the other is balled at his side, and he can feel his nails digging into his flesh, a pinprick of sharp pain. "Don't say things like that. That's not - that's not how we feel. That's not how _I_ feel."

"Quatre," Trowa starts.

"It's good to worry about other people. It makes you human. And you're my..." Quatre's voice warbles and threatens to give out. He wonders if he should feel ashamed of that, but he's past feeling that sort of thing. There's no time for embarrassment in war. He takes a breath, finds his strength again. "You're my friend."

 _Friend_ isn't nearly a strong enough word, but there really isn't anything better. There's no word that could describe the bonds running between them, taut and coiled, and maybe it's better that way. Quatre feels strangely jealous of it all. If he holds it close, then perhaps nothing outside can touch it.

He sinks down to his knees, somewhat overwhelmed by the day's events and the heaviness, the weariness, that seems to descend in an instant. As his hand slides down from Trowa's shoulder, the other man catches it. Trowa's fingers are warm when they curl around Quatre's own, held safely in Trowa's lap.

"Quatre," Trowa says again, but it's different this time - fond.

Quatre lets himself lean against Trowa's thigh. He's so tired. He's tired of everything - the running, the fighting, the constant fear that one of them won't come back. It feels like everything has been gouged out of himself and put back in, only the pieces don't line up anymore, and everything fits wrong.

Trowa's fingers run gentle circles across the back of Quatre's hand.

"You're my friend, too," Trowa tells him, "and I remember that now."

\--

It's later that Duo finds Quatre alone, finally, after the commotion that had ensued.

"Hey," he says, watching Quatre sitting alone in the small living quarters. The other man doesn't really move or acknowledge Duo's presence, but his shoulders tighten a bit, and it's enough for Duo. He walks into the room; it's dark, but he thinks maybe Quatre wanted it that way on purpose. Duo understands that feeling. In the darkness, it's easier to believe the things you would rather believe.

He sits down behind the other man, who is slumped forward with his elbows resting on his knees.

"You okay?" Duo asks.

"Are any of us really?" Quatre replies, voice quiet.

Duo runs his tongue over his bottom lip, wetting the dried skin. "Maybe," he offers. "Maybe not. But I dunno - what is 'okay' anymore, anyway?"

He gets a short, barked little laugh for that, and Quatre turns around a bit to look at Duo over his shoulder.

"There's only one definition for 'okay'," he says. "You can't be subjective about something like that."

"Sure you can," Duo replies. He shifts a bit closer, but is hesitant. It feels like Quatre is an animal cornered by unseen prey. If Duo pushes him, then perhaps Quatre will bolt. Duo doesn't want to spook him any further. They are all at the end of their ropes, pushed past the point of exhaustion into something even worse.

"Quatre," he tries, when he fails to get a response.

The other man shifts, straightening a bit, so that he's very close to Duo's form, and lets out a long, slow breath. It's more controlled than Duo would have expected it to be.

"You know what I think?" Quatre asks, almost a whisper.

Duo swallows hard. "What?"

"I think that I don't deserve to have him back."

Somehow, achingly, the world seems to stop around them. Duo finds himself unable to breathe; everything is trapped, stuck, choking him. Quatre shakes his head and Duo watches the feather-like strands drag across his collar, so light they are nearly transparent.

"I hurt so many people," Quatre continues, "and I should be punished for that. Maybe this was my punishment. And it was... it was _good_ that way. I deserved it. And now that he's back, it's all gone wrong. Something else needs to happen. I need to be made to _feel_ pain like I inflicted on other people."

"Stop," Duo hisses.

"I can't stop, can I?" Quatre asks, and there's a sob there, in the back of his throat. "I can't stop because I didn't stop, and everyone-"

Duo throws his arms around Quatre's shoulders, effectively cutting off the man's tirade. He pushes his face into Quatre's back, noses into the fabric there; he's so light, maybe he'll float away if Duo lets go, and the thought terrifies him. He can feel Quatre's chest rising and falling beneath his embrace, hitching a bit, unsteady.

"Stop," Duo says again, and breathes it out against Quatre's neck. "It's okay."

Quatre gasps a little. "It's not okay."

"But it will be," Duo tells him, and squeezes, maybe just to prove to himself that Quatre is still real. "You'll get there eventually."

There is a long stretch of silence between them.

"Duo?" Quatre asks, sounding unsure.

"Yeah," Duo replies, and tightens his hold again. "I'll be here when you do."

\--

Wufei is rarely surprised by anything, and this is no exception. They are warriors, all of them, and where the soldiers of old had swords and guns, they have mobile suits. It seems fitting that just like the old warriors, who would spend hours sharpening and cleaning their weapons, that the pilots spend that same time fixing and soldering and cleaning the metal.

Duo is noisy when he works on his suit; there's a lot of clanging and banging and the occasional expletive when he jams his finger somewhere it doesn't belong. Wufei thinks idly, as he walks the metal criss-cross to the towering mobile suit, that Duo really doesn't make a very good spy.

He says as much when he stops near Duo's workstation, and gets a half-hearted laugh in return.

"Maybe you're right," is all Duo will say, which is strange.

"You should sleep," Wufei tells him. "You're no use if you're exhausted."

He's well-aware of the hypocrisy of his own statement, and Duo seems to be as well, because the other man simply shrugs and doesn't really respond. Wufei finds an overturned box that used to be full of extra supplies - bolts and wires and plastic caps that always seem to be burning off in the heat of battle, only needing to be replaced again afterwards - and sits down on it. He watches Duo work for awhile, finding some measure of comfort in the rhythms he too knows by heart.

"I fuckin' hate ZERO," Duo finally says, as he's trying to rewire a small section of his suit that leads to the left arm. "It's such a piece of shit - messing with everyone's heads like this."

Wufei thinks back to his own time using ZERO; it lingers, that much is for sure, but he's struggling to come to terms with how he feels about it.

"Is that bad?" he asks.

This seems to startle Duo. The other man straightens and pulls back from the suit, staring at Wufei with wide, disbelieving eyes. "Are you serious? _You_ of all people aren't agreeing with me?"

"Maybe," Wufei says, half-shrugs, and feels uncomfortable. Duo is correct about that.

He waits a few minutes and then adds, "But it helped Trowa. It restored his memories."

"Yeah, but at what cost?" Duo shoots back. "He was probably better off without remembering all that stuff."

There was a time in Wufei's past when he would have agreed with Duo. Maybe he still does agree, somewhere inside, but that's a part that Wufei has long since learned to bury. He used to want to forget everything. Now, things are not so clear.

"What about you?" Duo asks.

"What about me what?" Wufei replies.

Duo shrugs, flipping his braid over his shoulder - the end of it hits the suit and makes a padded thud. "Did it help you?"

Wufei thinks about this for a long moment. He thinks of his time spent on Earth, his time spent with only Shenlong as company. He watches Duo work and tries to lose himself in the image.

"Yes," he answers, and it's actually a bit hard to force the word out. It gets caught in his throat, the admission he never wanted to say out loud.

The other man stops once more to look at Wufei. There's the ghost of a smile on Duo's lips, and he looks long enough that Wufei starts to feel pricks of discomfort running along his arms. Just before it becomes unbearable, Duo shifts and holds up a wrench.

"You wanna help?" he asks, and that smile is still there, looking out of place and completely natural at the same time, a dissonance that Duo always seems to bring with him.

Wufei rises and reaches for the tool. "Yes," he admits again.

\--

There is something comforting about the blinking lights on the command console. It's different from the cockpit of a mobile suit - spread out, encompassing more and requiring more hands - but something about it is the same, and Heero doesn't mind the differences. He feels like he can lose a bit of himself in the routine when he's there, even if he's not the one controlling Peacemillion itself.

He goes to find solitude and discovers that Wufei has beaten him there upon opening the main cabin door. For a second, he thinks about turning and leaving the other man alone, but something stops him. He lets the door shut behind him.

"No sign of Libra," Wufei says without turning around; no doubt he's already identified Heero without needing to confirm it. "We're tracking what we can from here."

"I didn't expect Milliardo to play his cards this soon," Heero half-agrees.

"He'll want to have the element of surprise," Wufei says.

Heero watches the lights on the console slowly light and fade. The auto-pilot on the ship requires no supervision to keep Peacemillion afloat - Heero wonders idly if they believe the same about other things that need more. So many of their misconceptions stem from refusing to see the truth of their own responsibility.

"Do you think what he's doing is right?" Heero asks.

The question seems to surprise the other man. Wufei purses his lips, the muscles in his jaw tensing a bit, before he answers: "I think he thinks what he's doing is right."

It's probably as much of a response as Heero will get from the man, so he switches tactics. "Why are you still here?"

This question, Wufei seems to have been expecting.

"Because ZERO told me to stay," he says.

"But that's not the only reason," Heero replies.

Wufei turns to him with a question written all over his features. Heero moves up to the console and keys in a few commands. The system immediately begins running the request - a simple scan for connected radio sets within Peacemillion's technological perimeter - and Heero watches the report as it slowly filters onto the screen.

"That wouldn't be enough to make you stay here," Heero finally says, as he begins to run another; he isn't expecting to find anything, but he isn't sure how often the auto-pilot has been set to scan. It gives him something to do, something to keep his hands and mind busy. "You've had orders you didn't obey because you didn't feel they were right. Why trust a computer you've spoken so much resistance against?"

It is a long time before the other man answers.

"When you hit that self-destruct button, you believed whole-heartedly in your mission," Wufei says.

"Yes," Heero agrees.

Wufei shrugs a bit; he looks, in the light of the console, far younger than he usually does. "What if I've lost the ability to believe in anything that strongly?"

"I don't think that's true," Heero says. "But maybe your beliefs have shifted."

"We are weak when we have connections with others," Wufei spits - Heero can't figure out where the vitriol is actually aimed, inward or outward.

"Not always," Heero says. "Sometimes, that actually makes us strong."

Wufei levels him with a long look. "So you would do things differently if you could? Knowing what you do now?"

Heero's fingers are shaking a bit as he queues up the last command into the computer system. It will run without him there, and in the morning, it will be just another piece of information to look at with the crew and decide what to do. He isn't sure how to answer, because that's the question he's been asking himself for months. There are things that he would love to do away - and things that terrify him to think about giving up.

His left arm aches, almost as in response, and he holds himself back from reaching over to massage the muscles.

"We can't change the past," he tells Wufei - and himself. "All we can do is look forward."

"Together," Wufei says, though it sounds a bit forced.

"Yeah," Heero agrees, and shuts down the command window.

\--

Having all the memories back is jarring - going from nothing to everything in the space of only a few seconds has left him reeling. Trowa prides himself on his ability to stay calm and think rationally, but the truth is, ZERO and its delivery of forgotten events has shaken him down to the core. He feels calmer now, at least, having sorted through the parts that have come rushing back, but still, everything is uncomfortable.

The others are asleep. They need their rest if they are to be successful, and none of them are very good at taking care of themselves. Trowa should be doing the same, but he finds himself too restless to settle. After a long few hours twisting and turning beneath the blankets, he resigns himself to his fate and rises.

Peacemillion is very quiet in the dead of night.

As Trowa walks through the halls, he wonders if it had been better before he'd gotten his memories back. It had been confusing and isolating, yes, but now, having them returned, it hurts more than he could have imagined. All the things he carries - he'd been free of them for a short time, without even knowing what he'd lost. He thinks it's selfish to wish to be free of them again.

He stops, without realizing at first, outside one of the cabin doors. Hand frozen in mid-air, he waits, counting his own breaths, and then finally, something solidifying in his mind, he completes the action and turns the door handle.

He knows that Heero is already awake and fully alert when he enters, ever the soldier.

"Can't sleep?" the figure from the bed asks, and Trowa knows he was correct.

"Sorry," he says, automatically. "Did I wake you?"

"It's fine," Heero replies.

Trowa crosses the floor to stand by the bed, and all of a sudden, he's completely unsure of what he's doing. What could he have wanted to find here? He's at the mercy of the memories he's still sorting through again, and they have walked him here, unbidden, against his will; these are the things he wishes he could lose once more.

As if reading his mind, Heero asks, "Why did you come here?"

"I don't know," Trowa admits. He's lost control now. It's terrifying that there is something stronger than his own will commanding his body to move. He jolts free from it, trembling, and turns to leave the way he came. "I'll go, I'm sorry, I don't-"

Heero's hand darts out and wraps around Trowa's wrist, fingers so tight that they make Trowa's entire arm ache.

"Don't go," Heero commands, voice rough. Trowa's eyes are finally adjusting to the darkness, and he can make out the outline of Heero's form. Trowa swallows hard and nods, and hopes that Heero, too, can see enough to understand.

Heero pulls Trowa onto the bed, and Trowa is shaking now - this situation is unfamiliar to him. He's afraid of leaving, and he's equally afraid of staying. He curls up at the edge of the bed, lying on top of the crumpled blankets, and Heero still has not let go of his wrist. The too-tight grip is strangely comforting, like an anchor.

"I remember everything," Trowa whispers. He isn't quite sure what he's trying to say.

"I'm sorry," Heero says, sounding ragged. "For what I... I let you die."

Trowa laughs, humorless. "You can't let someone die."

"You didn't let me."

No, Trowa hadn't. Those memories are strong, bright like stars at the forefront of his mind. He finds himself lost in them for a few moments, as if he is reliving them all over again.

"Wufei asked me if I would do things differently now, if I could do them again," Heero says. His fingers around Trowa's wrist begin to unwind, and Trowa is afraid he will let go; instead, he moves upwards so that their fingers are very loosely tangled. It seems almost too much even to breathe, as if it might break whatever is forming between them, and Trowa doesn't dare move.

He does, however, reply, "Would you?"

"No," Heero answers. It's strong, leaving his lips in a rush.

Trowa slowly sucks in a lungful of air, steadying himself, and then closes his fingers around Heero's into a tight lock. This, he can hold onto. In the dizzying expanse of space and war, this is something that feels solid and real and warm beneath his touch.

"I missed you," Heero whispers, and his voice, it's nearly broken, heavy with things that maybe neither of them dare to think about in daylight.

"It's okay," Trowa says, and leans in to let his lips brush across the back of Heero's hand, clasped tightly in his own. "I'm here now."

Heero moves, a sound wrenched like an animal from his throat, until their foreheads are touching. Heero's breath is hot - uneven and stilted - against Trowa's cheek, and even that is oddly comforting.

"Trowa," Heero starts, but Trowa cuts him off.

"It's okay," he repeats. "I'm here."


End file.
